


The Sherlockian sonnets

by Lost_in_Paradise



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach, semi-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2191227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_in_Paradise/pseuds/Lost_in_Paradise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One shot were John tries to make sense of Sherlock, his disappearance, and his subsequent reappearance. using the Sonnets of William Shakespeare to help define the Before, the During, and the After. John is unknowingly accompanied by Sherlock to one of his monthly vigils in the graveyard, but why what was Sherlock so eager to tell him? This is a semi-au where seasons 1-2 have happened but season 3 hasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sherlockian sonnets

John stared at the stars. He didn’t feel the chill as the night air whipped around him. He felt the way he had in the After. There were three stages: the Before, the During, and the After. 

The Before was when he had no idea someone as wild and unpredictable and impossible as Sherlock had ever existed. Before he knew there was part of him running around out there solving crimes and god knows what else. It was a simpler time. He may not have been happy, but he hadn’t been sad. He had felt incomplete, but you can survived being incomplete. Much like people can survive sharks eating their hand or a wall crushing their foot. They may not have all their parts, but they can survive. John was living like he’d lost a limb. Harry had worried, his mother had worried, his father had worried, and his friends had worried. John frequently attempted to find his limb but never managed to. He’d gone from girl to girl in an attempt to find the missing piece but no luck there. He thought he might be looking in the wrong places and he went from guy to guy, but he didn’t find who he was looking for. Then one day, dejected and worn, a friend recommended a certain flatmate. It was all over. John walked through that door and something clicked. 

_To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I ey'd, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold, Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned, In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead._

The During was the mad, fantastic, amazing time when Sherlock was the Sun and John could do nothing but reflect his light. His flatmate walked into a room and stole the air from it. Sherlock shone so brightly that the gloomy London weather was forgotten. John could do nothing but follow. They’d run across the city mindless, heedless of the other people. Sherlock was so extraordinary that everyone else faded from John’s eyes. Together they searched for clues and interrogated people and insulted the intelligence of the planet. Something much bigger than John ever could imagine was set in motion and John wondered how far he would go for Sherlock. He knew from the moment he saw Sherlock about to swallow that pill that he would kill for him. John trusted Sherlock implicitly. He followed Sherlock as they untangled the plan Moriarty had for them from the Tong to the bomb vests. Then John was forced to wear one. The worst part was not the threat of being blown up, it was the pain in Sherlock’s eyes when he though John had betrayed him. When Moriarty revealed himself John did the only thing he knew how-protect Sherlock. Then it was back to whatever passed as normal until Irene Adler appeared. Genius and sinfully attractive, she took a bite out of Sherlock’s heart and left it raw and dripping. John was afraid she would steal his sun and was ashamed of his relief when she died. The Baskervilles case tore through him. Pain was not enough to describe how he felt after Sherlock claimed he didn’t have friends. Pure unadulterated agony shredded through him. He hid it well, until Sherlock lied to him, frightened him. Pretended to be saving him while studying him. The only thing that soothed it was Sherlock’s apology. Hearing Sherlock say that the only friend he had was John was magical almost. Was that wrong? John shook off the nibble of guilt. Sherlock was his and he was Sherlock’s. It was simple as that. 

_Let me not to the marriage of true minds  Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.      If this be error and upon me proved,  I never writ, nor no man ever loved._

Then the After came. It came slowly and relentlessly the starless night sweeping over the land as the curtain fell upon the stage. Moriarty was a disease, an incurable virus. He poisoned Sherlock’s life bit by bit. Moriarty utterly destroyed everything Sherlock had done, his work, his allies, his credibility. Then John had faced the worst scene of his life, Sherlock about to commit suicide. Sherlock Holmes, mastermind, prepared to take the fall. John could do nothing but gape in horror as Sherlock flung away his phone and stepped into air. John screamed his name as Sherlock plummeted. The awful bounce as the body hit the pavement was seared into his mind. Somewhere, John’s heart fell down and down and down. The sheer uncomprehending horror filled his concussed mind and John could only repeat the title Sherlock had bestowed on him and him alone. He’s my friend. He’s my friend. He never really healed from that. His voice still broke when Sherlock was mentioned. He never let anyone touch Sherlock’s things. He never moved the violin or the skull. Out of the corner of his eye he often saw a swish of a coat. He saw Sherlock disappear into a crowd or in a cab. He continued the way he always had but inside he was crumbling. The After was a grey nothingness, London smog without his Sherlock to brighten the day. Night was the worst, he dreamed about Sherlock. The visions of him falling were bad enough but the cruelty lay in the dreams where Sherlock was happy and whole, drinking tea in his favorite chair. John woke up and made two cups of tea after dreams like that. Then reality would slam into him like a tsunami.

_Is it thy will, thy image should keep open  My heavy eyelids to the weary night? Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, While shadows like to thee do mock my sight? Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee  So far from home into my deeds to pry,  To find out shames and idle hours in me, The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?  O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great: It is my love that keeps mine eye awake: Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake:  For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,  From me far off, with others all too near._

Then Sherlock arrived, all broken and bruised, on the doorstep to the flat. Sherlock fell to his knees in front of John and wept. John knelt and rested his forehead against Sherlock’s. They breathed in each other’s scent and the world shuddered to a stop. The grey world broke and a starry night expanded. Sherlock’s disappearance and the problems it caused could not be righted overnight, after the shock of Sherlock being back had worn off tensions were running high. John still visited Sherlock’s grave monthly, it seemed wrong not do. The man it was meant for did not lie rotting beneath it but John felt it would almost be sacrilegious to leave it unkempt. He kept vigil until midnight at the grave stone on the first day of every month, he had since the empty coffin was buried. John closed his eyes unaware that he was no longer alone. 

“ _No longer mourn for me when I am dead. Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell. Give warning to the world that I am fled. From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not. The hand that writ it, for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse; But let your love even with my life decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone._ ”

John replied swiftly, “ _Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten, From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die: The earth can yield me but a common grave, When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read; And tongues to be your being shall rehearse, When all the breathers of this world are dead; You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen, Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men._ ” 

“You know your Shakespeare.” Sherlock said as he sat next to John. John did not reply. He did not even open his eyes. Sherlock sat with him in the darkness for a long time before John responded.

John turned to look at Sherlock. “When you left I took up a great many things, most of which were abandoned quickly. Shakespeare, or at least his sonnets, decided to stick around.” 

“John, I want to tell you something.”

“What more can you say?”

“I understand I cannot in any way make this up to you.”

“No you can’t.” John said flatly, “So stop bloody trying.”

Sherlock felt his confidence draining. “But I do need to say one thing. One last thing and then you can do with it what you wish.”

“Yeah,” John said “and what might that be?”

“Everything I did, I did for you.” Sherlock spoke quickly as color crept into his cheeks. “I disconnected myself from my entire life, I gave up my work, I painted myself as a liar, I fell off a building and I did it all for you. I did it for you, John. I did it because...because I love you.” 

The silence fell thick and heavy. John’s face was frozen in the moonlight. He turned to look at Sherlock.

“Say that again.” 

“I love you.” Sherlock was surprised at how easily the words came. “I love you.” 

John stared straight into Sherlock’s eyes. “Do you mean it?”

“I love you John, I love you more than life, I love you so much it hurts.” Sherlock clutched at his chest, “I love you I love you I love you I love you.” 

John grabbed Sherlock’s right hand and kissed all the fingers. He grabbed Sherlock’s left and did the same. He kissed Sherlock’s clavicle and kissed his nose. Then he kissed Sherlock. Sherlock flailed for a moment then got his bearings. The kiss deepened and it felt like fire. It felt better than the heroin. It coursed through Sherlock and into John. Finally, panting and rumpled they broke apart. John’s heart fluttered and he gazed with wonder at consulting detective next to him. They were comfortable in the silence and John could only consume Sherlock with his eyes as his missing puzzle piece clicked back into place. They stayed at the grave until the sun rose. Then the detective and the blogger walked hand and hand out of the fog and into the glorious dawn of a new day. 

_Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?  Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,  And summer's lease hath all too short a date:  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,  Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,   So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee._

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the characters or the sonnets. I've wanted to write something post Reichenbach for a long time. I didn't include season three because at the time I first wanted to write something like this season 3 didn't exist and I wanted to write this fic the way I'd intended to when I first finished season two. It took a long time for me to get around to writing this but better late than never I guess! I have a tiny blue book with all of Shakespeare's sonnets in them and today I just happened to take them off the shelf and think maybe I should write a fic with them! Thanks for reading, please leave kudos/review/feedback. Please note that the sonnets can be interpreted however the reader would like to.


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